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A project, called the Microscale Immune Studies Laboratory (MISL), is investigating early events in immune system response — when pathogens first invade a body. The work is in its second of three years of funding from the LDRD program. Sandia is partnering with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of California, San Francisco on the project.
Understanding these early steps could lead to better ways to diagnose and stop disease before there are symptoms, and to more effective therapeutics, says Sandia team lead Anup Singh. Most existing research into how immune cells respond to pathogens has been done by looking at large cell populations. But information gathered by examining a large population of cells may mask underlying mechanisms at the individual cell level, Singh says.
“Cells have different life cycles, just like any living being. And not all cells are exposed to the pathogen at the same time,” Singh says. “We wanted to look at cells in the same life cycle and same infectious state. This can only be done cell by cell. We also want to study populations, but one cell at a time.”
The research is possible because of advances in several Sandia-developed technologies, including:
Real immune cells are short-lived outside of bodies. To do the type of experiments the researchers wanted, they needed cells that can stay alive more than a couple of hours, have the ability to grow, and represent a relevant model of human immune cells. They obtained “immortalized” mouse immune cells from a collaborator at the University of California. These cells have the needed life span and are accepted as a model system by the immunological research community.